Inside the McLaren vs. Red Bull ‘Tyre Water’ Showdown

May 3 – The needle has returned to the relationship between title protagonists McLaren and Red Bull in Miami.

It is well known that respective bosses Zak Brown and Christian Horner do not get along, adding extra tension to the technical spat about flexible wings.

Red Bull’s latest focus has been on the near-perfect tyre management of the championship-leading McLaren – including getting heat into the tyres and then keeping them within the perfect ‘window’.

One suspicion is that the Woking based team may be putting water into the Pirelli tyres. McLaren CEO Brown amusingly hit back in Miami by sipping from a water bottle marked with the label “Tyre Water”.

Red Bull, however, is unperturbed, using special thermal imaging cameras to note the differences in heat when McLaren’s wheels are removed during pitstops.

Auto Motor und Sport says that at particularly hot races, like Bahrain and Jeddah, the thermal images showed conspicuous blue (cool) patches around the McLaren brake vents compared to the orange and red of the other cars.

“It’s impossible that you can cool so well with air alone,” a Red Bull source declared.

The water bottle troll aside, Brown said the insinuation of secret water-injection into the tyres is “ludicrous”.

Meanwhile, new father Max Verstappen finally arrived in Miami a mere 3 hours before Friday practice to discover that his Red Bull, and not Yuki Tsunoda’s, is fitted with a new floor.

Advisor Dr Helmut Marko told Servus TV: “Tsunoda doesn’t have the new floor yet.

“Compared to Yuki, Max has less understeer, but he still has understeer. But we can see that we have taken the right direction.”

As for the gap to the leading Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli and the two McLarens, Marko said of the Mercedes-powered runners: “They have new engines.

“A new engine always delivers more power, and that apparently worked out well for them here,” he told Servus TV.

Finally, after Verstappen admitted that his baby daughter Lily was actually born “a few days” ago in Monaco, Marko was asked about the dramatic development in the quadruple world champion’s life.

“These are Max’s private matters,” said the 82-year-old. “It’s nice that he has a child, but this has nothing to do with motorsport.”

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